WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is delaying by a week its release of an internal CIA report on the agency’s Bush-era secret detention and interrogation program.
The roughly 150-page report was expected to be released Friday, but a CIA spokesman said officials were still poring through the documents.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for the release of all documents relating to the CIA’s interrogation program, said it was disappointed by the delay.
The legal organization has been waiting for the release of a less-censored version of the report for more than a year. In the version released in May 2008, all but a few paragraphs and individual words were blacked out.
"We can only hope that this delay is a sign that the forces of transparency within the Obama administration are winning over the forces of secrecy and that the report will ultimately be released with minimal redactions,” ACLU attorney Amrit Singh said in a statement.
Singh said the agency "should not be permitted to use national security as a pretext for suppressing evidence of its own unlawful conduct,” adding that "the American people have a right to know the full truth about the torture program that was authorized in their name.”
CIA spokesman George Little called Singh’s characterization "both wrong and offensive.”
The review by the inspector general for the CIA was completed in 2004.
John L. Helgerson, the now-retired CIA inspector who spearheaded the investigation, said Thursday that the report is "a comprehensive look at everything the agency had been doing related to detention and interrogation.”
Helgerson said his review "found a great deal running very well. We also found things to be concerned about.” The investigation was conducted in response to concerns expressed by agency employees, he added.
Helgerson said a large portion of the report addresses CIA activities, sources and methods that should remain classified.
by the associated press
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